European Parliament motion a 'farce'

China has strongly denounced a Xinjiang-related resolution adopted on Thursday by the European Parliament, calling it another ridiculous farce fabricated by anti-China forces out of political interests aiming to contain China's development.

You Wenze, spokesman for the National People's Congress' Foreign Affairs Committee, said that China firmly rejected the European Parliament's engagement of political manipulation and gross interference in China's domestic affairs in the name of so-called human rights issues.

You said that some anti-China forces in the European Parliament, out of their own political interests, have smeared the Chinese government's policy in Xinjiang and maliciously spread lies and rumors about the region in spite of facts.

"The purpose of their politicization and instrumentalization of human rights issues is to sow discord among various ethnic groups in China, to slander China's image and to contain China's development. Such practice is doomed to fail," You said in a statement issued on Friday.

Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the resolution, which stated that China's alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang hold a "serious risk of genocide", was purely based on lie of the century concocted by extreme anti-China forces.

He urged relevant lawmakers of the European Parliament to stop using human rights issues as a pretext to stoke ideological confrontation, saying that China will firmly safeguard its own sovereignty, security and development interests.

Zhao said that lies and farces cannot hide the facts about Xinjiang, where people enjoy stability, unity and the protection of human rights.

Official statistics showed that from the first national census in 1953 to the seventh one in 2020, the population of Uygurs in Xinjiang has increased from 3.6 million to 11.62 million. Life expectancy in Xinjiang has increased from 30 years in 1949 to 74.7 years in 2019.

From 1955 to 2020, the region's GDP expanded by 160 times, and its per capita regional GDP by 30 times, bringing about a historic solution to absolute poverty.

A spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the European Union said that Xinjiang-related issues are in fact about fighting terrorism, extremism and separatism, not about human rights or religion.

"For a long time, separatists, religious extremists and terrorists carried out thousands of violent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, causing heavy casualties among innocent people. In response to these atrocities, China has adopted counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in accordance with the law, guaranteeing people's basic human rights, such as the right to subsistence and development, to the greatest possible extent," the spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.

There has been no violent terrorist attack in Xinjiang for over five years.

The spokesperson said that no lie or fallacy can deny the fact that Xinjiang has made historic progress in human rights development and no disinformation can hinder Xinjiang's development and prosperity.

"We urge the European Parliament to respect facts, not to go further down the wrong path and immediately stop smearing and attacking the human rights situation in Xinjiang," the spokesperson said.